Hiiraan Online
Sunday January 22, 2017
Humanitarian needs in Ethiopia have tripled since the beginning of 2015 as one of the strongest El Niño events on record has caused severe drought, leading to successive crop failures and widespread livestock deaths. Photo: Tuva Raanes Bogsnes/NRC.
Mogadishu (HOL) Recent droughts in the Horn of Africa has led to an urgent call to action to divert a food and water crisis in the horn of Africa.
Failure of the October - December rains across parts of Somalia and the Horn has led to a crippling drought. The drought follows one of the strongest El Nino effects on record according to the agency
In a Paper prepared by Inter-Agency Working Group on Disaster Preparedness for East and Central Africa (IAWG) the groups urge that more aid is needed to save some of the 5 million lives that are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
Aid groups remind the international community that standing idle is not an option. in 2011-2012, failed rains took the lives of nearly 250,000 Somalis.
"We’ve been here many times before; drought in the Horn of Africa is a recurrent event. In 2010 too, the October-December rains in the region were poor, and catastrophic impacts loomed if the following rains were also below average. But systemic failures on the part of the international community meant that it wasn’t until after the March-May 2011 rains failed and famine was declared in July that a humanitarian response at scale began. Nearly 260,000 people in Somalia lost their lives in 2011, and millions lost their livelihood. The world swore ‘never again’."
Read the full briefing report here